Counting the Days
by Sara Wolfe
Summary: After the fight with Doomsday, Lois has disappeared, and Clark has retreated into the isolation of the Arctic. Three months later, Lois has reappeared, and Clark has been pulled back to Metropolis by his friends and family, but Clark's secret has fractured their relationship. When Lois takes an assignment away from home, Clark has a year to convince her how much she means to him.


**Author's Note: **I'd originally started this project a few years ago, but I've been reworking it, and it's being posted again with some much-needed changes.

_**Summer **_

Surprisingly, it was Oliver who found him, three months into his self-imposed exile. The billionaire strode into the Fortress like he owned the place, which, Clark reasoned, was the way he entered most places. Still, he had to act like he cared, even a little bit.

"Haven't you ever heard of knocking?" he asked, for form, not taking his eyes off the crystals glowing in the console in front of him.

"Waste of my time," Oliver declared, shoving his hands into the pockets of his parka as he looked around. "Nice place you got here, Clark. Little translucent for my tastes…"

"You didn't come all this way to talk about my interior decorating choices," Clark interrupted, trying to hurry Oliver along.

He wanted the visit to be over as soon as possible, so that he could go back to the quiet solitude that had filled his days until then.

"No, I didn't," Oliver agreed. "But, if you ever decide you want to add some life to this place, I know some people."

Clark turned to face the other man for the first time, giving him an incredulous look, and Oliver grinned.

"Got a rise out of you, didn't I?" he asked, his tone triumphantly smug.

"Did you want something?" Clark asked, struggling to maintain his emotionless composure.

He wanted Oliver to leave; wanted to go back to the numbness that had filled his whole body. He didn't like feeling annoyed at the other man. He didn't like feeling anything, these days.

"I came to drag you back to Metropolis," Oliver informed him. "Kicking and screaming, if I have to."

Clark snorted out a dry laugh, almost amused at the image that conjured up.

"Chloe told you where I was," he guessed.

"No," Oliver told him, "Sullivan told me about your overly-melodramatic exit from humanity, and I figured that this was where you'd go."

"Well, you found me," Clark said, dryly. "Congratulations. You can leave now."

"Not until you're on that plane with me," Oliver said, stubbornly, and Clark glared at him.

"Maybe you missed the part about why I'm here," he said, slowly, his voice measured.

"No, I got that memo," Oliver said. "You're off playing the martyr, again."

"Jimmy is dead," Clark snapped, heat in his voice as he rose to his feet. "He's dead, and I didn't do anything to stop it."

"Right," Oliver drawled, his voice practically dripping with sarcasm. "It's not like you weren't busy fighting an indestructible monster, or anything. You're right, you absolutely should have been able to be in two places at once that night."

Clark advanced on Oliver, barely realizing what he was about to do until he saw his reflection in the crystals behind them, his face contorted in a mask of rage, his hand raised to strike his friend. Horrified, Clark stumbled backward, his arm dropping woodenly to his side. Oliver watched him as he sank to the icy floor, quiet compassion in his eyes. He hadn't flinched even once.

"Jimmy is dead because Davis Bloom killed him," Oliver said, quietly, as he sat down as well, never taking his eyes off Clark.

"I should have," Clark started, but Oliver cut him off.

"We trapped him in that warehouse," he continued, relentlessly. "Me, Dinah, and Bart. Sullivan released him from Doomsday with black kryptonite."

"It was my plan," Clark protested, but Oliver just steamrolled right over him like he hadn't even spoken.

"If we'd worked with you," he said, meeting Clark squarely in the eye, "if you'd been there, and not unconscious on the tracks thanks to my stupid ego, then you would have been able to contain Doomsday, and he wouldn't have gone on a rampage. We would have dealt with him, and with Davis, as a team."

"I still feel like I should have stopped it," Clark said, softly, his voice hollow.

"You may be some kind of superman, Clark," Oliver told him, "but even you can't fix everything. We all made mistakes that night, big ones, and we all have to live with the consequences."

"Yeah, and the consequence is that Jimmy is dead," Clark said.

"Yes, he is," Oliver said, surprising Clark. "But, turning your back on humanity, walking away from your life, that's not going to bring him back."

"I don't belong out there," Clark insisted, gesturing out at the expanse beyond the entrance to the Fortress. "I never have. And, besides, the world doesn't need me."

"Oh, that is just the biggest load of crap I've ever heard," Oliver snapped at him.

Pulling a backpack from his back that Clark hadn't noticed him wearing, he unzipped the pocket and started pulling out scraps of newspaper.

"Ninety year old woman pulled from burning building by red and blue angel," he read out loud, dropping the paper at Clark's feet. "Family of four swept off the freeway in their car when the driver had a seizure and swerved into the other lane. Military helicopter caught in midair after engine failure. Red-Blue Blur rushes boy to hospital three thousand miles away for heart transplant."

Stopping in his recitation, he glared at Clark.

"Do I need to go on?" he demanded.

"They needed a hero," Clark said, persistently. "Not Clark Kent."

"I need Clark Kent," Oliver said, his voice intense, and Clark looked at him in surprise. "Dinah needs you. AC, Bart, Victor, Zatanna, your mother," he added, emphatically, "we all need you in our lives."

Clark still didn't look completely convinced, so Oliver played his ace in the hole.

"Lois needs you," he continued, and Clark could feel himself shutting down.

"Lois is gone," he said, tonelessly.

"Not forever," Oliver said, confidently, and Clark shot him a dark look.

"Don't you think I've looked?" he demanded, his voice cracking with emotion. "I've looked everywhere. For the last three months, all I've done is scour the planet. Lois isn't anywhere."

"She's somewhere," Oliver said, in that same infuriatingly calm tone. "We'll find her."

"How can you believe that?" Clark asked, quietly.

"How can you not?" Oliver returned.

Clark looked over at his friend and saw determination in his eyes.

"We'll find her," Oliver repeated. "_You'll_ find her, Clark. I know you will."

Clark closed his eyes, rocked to his core by the unshakable, unwavering faith he heard in the other man's voice. He hadn't heard that from anyone since the last time he'd spoken to Lois.

"Why are you doing this?" he finally asked.

"You brought me back when I was teetering on the edge of my abyss," Oliver reminded him. "Now, I'm here to bring you home."

Standing, he held a hand out to Clark. After a moment, Clark took Oliver's hand and let the other man pull him to his feet.

"The helicopter's right outside," Oliver told him as they walked out of the Fortress and into the freezing arctic winds.

He stumbled in the face of the near-gale force winds, and Clark wrapped a hand around his arm to keep him on his feet. They dashed across the ice to the helicopter, Clark shielding Oliver from the wind with his body.

"Before you know it," Oliver said, as they scrambled into the helicopter and Oliver climbed into the pilot's seat, "you'll be back home and back at work."

"I doubt after all this time that I still have a job," Clark replied, strapping himself into the copilot's seat. "Can you even fly this thing?"

"You want to walk back to Metropolis?" Oliver asked, archly.

He moved the throttle forward, and the helicopter lurched into the air, buffeted by the wind. His hands on the controls were quick and steady, and he soon had the small aircraft flying smoothly, high in the air.

"Thanks to the merger I made with Tess," Oliver said, picking up their thread of conversation, "I own controlling interest in a majority of LuthorCorp holdings, including the Daily Planet. Trust me, you still have a job back in Metropolis."

It took them nearly thee days to fly from the arctic to Metropolis. When they finally arrived home, it was the middle of the night, and Oliver insisted on Clark using the guest room in his penthouse suite.

"The better to keep an eye on you and make sure you don't go running back to that ice palace of yours," Oliver remarked, as he showed Clark the room.

Clark shut the door behind him, and turned to see Shelby lying on the bed, wagging his tail eagerly when he saw Clark.

"Hey, buddy," Clark crooned, sitting down next to his dog and running his fingers through his soft fur, touched by Oliver's thoughtfulness at making sure Shelby was well taken care of. "I guess I owe him a lot, don't I?"

He stayed awake for a little while longer, poking through the books Oliver had filled the bookcases with. But, finally, exhaustion caught up with him, and he was asleep almost as soon as his head hit the pillow. And as he slept, he dreamt about Lois.

* * *

The next day, Clark walked into the bullpen of the Daily Planet, hearing the raucous din bordering on chaos that filled the room. Walking over to his desk, he looked down at the space that remained exactly as he had left it three months ago. Lois's desk looked much the same, and for a second, he could almost pretend that everything was the same as it had been before Doomsday's attack.

Then, as he looked around the room, he caught sight of Jimmy's old desk, currently occupied by the clutter of another photographer. Clark felt a pang of grief so sharp that it felt like he'd been stabbed.

"Still seems hard to believe the kid's really gone," a voice spoke up from behind him, and Clark turned to see Ron Troupe standing behind him.

"Good to have you back, Kent," Troupe continued, clapping a companionable hand on Clark's shoulder.

"It's good to be back," Clark replied, surprised to find that he really meant the sentiment.

He would have said more, but he was interrupted by the sound of a woman's voice near the elevators.

"What year is it?"

Hardly daring to hope, Clark turned toward the sound of the woman's voice to see Lois standing near the elevators, holding a shocked Jeff Dublowsky by the shoulders.

"What year is it?" the startled intern repeated, his voice coming out in a squeak, and Lois gave him a quick shake.

"Focus, here," she snapped out. "What's the date?"

"August 25th, 2009," Clark called out, and Lois turned to face him, a wide grin breaking out over her face.

"I'm home," she sang out, happily, and then she hurtled down the stairs to the bullpen to jump him and wrap her arms around his neck in a fierce hug. Clark returned the hug just as eagerly.

"You're home," he agreed, quietly. "We're both home."


End file.
